"I may not do that--"
"You mayn't? Oh, Bill, don't commit yourself! You may want to, later."
"I may not do that," repeated Mr. Oliver, gloomily, "but, by George, some day I'll have a wad in the bank that'll make me feel that I can afford to turn those fellows down! They'll know that I've got it, all right."
"Bill, I don't think that's much of an ambition," Susan said, candidly, "to want so much money that you aren't afraid of a waiter! Get some crisps while we're passing the man, Billy!" she interrupted herself to say, urgently, "we can talk on the car!"
He bought them, grinning sheepishly.
"But honestly, Sue, don't you get mad when you think that about the only standard of the world is money?" he resumed presently.
"Well, we know that we're BETTER than lots of rich people, Bill."
"How are we better?"
"More refined. Better born. Better ancestry."
"Oh, rot! A lot they care for that! No, people that have money can get the best of people who haven't, coming and going. And for that reason, Sue," they were on the car now, and Billy was standing on the running board, just in front of her, "for that reason, Sue, I'm going to MAKE money, and when I have so much that everyone knows it then I'll do as I darn please. And I won't please to do the things they do, either!"
"You're very sure of yourself, Bill! How are you going to make it?"
"The way other men make it, by gosh!" Mr. Oliver said seriously. "I'm going into blue-printing with Ross, on the side. I've got nearly three thousand in Panhandle lots--"
"Oh, you have NOT!"
"Oh, I have, too! Spence put me onto it. They're no good now, but you bet your life they will be! And I'm going to stick along at the foundry until the old man wakes up some day, and realizes that I'm getting more out of my men than any other two foremen in the place. Those boys would do anything for me--"
"Because you're a very unusual type of man to be in that sort of place, Bill!" Susan interrupted.
"Shucks," he said, in embarrassment. "Well," he resumed, "then some day I'm going to the old man and ask him for a year's leave. Then I'll visit every big iron-works in the East, and when I come back, I'll take a job of casting from my own blue-prints, at not less than a hundred a week. Then I'll run up some flats in the Panhandle--"